Opinions from experience please

[Warren_L]

One thing that you should consider if you plan on doing a lot of shore diving in Bonaire, especially being a newish diver, is how comfortable you are carrying a large camera rig into your entries and exits. I've been to Bonaire a few times, and I can tell you that undoubtedly you will encounter some entries and exits that are going to be challenging. Most of the entries are on hard coral/rock entries and ironshore (broken up chunks of hard coral), and there can be some decent surf at the entries. There are only a few sites that are easy beach entries with regular sand.

With a smaller rig like the Sealife, it will likely be much easier to manage than a full on housed dSLR with strobes. Again, it all depends on what your comfort level is in getting into the water.

If you want to check out my Bonaire pics from last year, they are located here:

Bonaire 2010 part 1

Bonaire 2010 part 2

 

[bvanant]

That is why I would still vote for the housing for the flip video. Small, cheap and quite cool.
Bill

 

[spoolin01]

That is why I would still vote for the housing for the flip video. Small, cheap and quite cool.
Bill

I second that. I just got the similar Kodak Zi8 + Ike Housing - very easy and pleasing video in a pocket-sized package. Retail is around $350. Video light and wide angle lens (both very useful) add quite a bit more, but that's photography...

 

[Puffer Fish]

Bill, A Nikon D3100 has around 2,200 to 2,400 lph (which is pretty typical of that class of SLR), A Oly zx-1 has, 2,200 to 2,400 lph... humm resolution is actually the same... The best P&S resolution is the G10, in low ISO at just over 2,400 (but sucked at any high iso).

Now if every slr user was using a full frame, 20+ meg sensor, then 2,700 -2,800 is possible with the right lens, assuming one is not using anything above F8

In rough terms, F16, will degrade the image by (it is not uniform, and varies a bit from lens to lens, but over F5.6, around 1/3 of the resolution is gone. So even a Canon 5D, if F22 is used, cannot produce an image with better resolution than several lowly P & S's.

Note: Image degradation due to using higher F stops is a well known and very tested issue, and there is not solution for it.

But an image is more that just resolution. There is dynamic range, and a host of over visual effects.

Dynamic range for a good slr is typically about 2 stops better the best P & S's, but if bright sun is not a normal shooting condition, then that would not be a concern.

Depth of field, can make for great images, but again, how many underwater images are dependent on that? And a very narrow depth of field makes taking the image difficult.

10 years ago, there were no good point and shoot camera's, so everything you stated was true, but that has not been the case for several years now...and even after lots of testing, thousands of examples, the SLR crowd is still living in what they want to be true over what is true.

I happen to love photography, and have all my life. I have always owned SLR's and rangefinder cameras (and medium and large format camera's). There is a place for them, and in the underwater world, they are the only camera's that can really do quality wide angle images. One has to put so much glass between the image and the subject with a P & S, that at best, one will get about 1/2 the image quality.

But that shutter speed issue, well, here is an example of one:

This fish (either a spotted drum or jacknife, as no one seems to know which it grows into), is a very lethargic fish and very easy to take pictures of, but at this size they are one ADD fish, and it is difficult to even get an image on one.

If you go to the Reef Fish of Florida/Caribbean/Bahamas dvd, and look at all the images of the juveniles (which there are several of), every one shows some motion blur (usually the tail)...

Here is a 1/500th image

I guess it is too much to ask, but I wish that anyone using a camera do some homework, learn a bit about the technology and it's good and bad points and actually compare identical images, and then make judgements.

As I own a lot of camera's, I have and it is not what "common wisdom" has been telling everyone.

There are two good things about P&S camera's over interchangeable lens ones:

1. Depth of field at a given field of view and F stop. The SLR people would tell you they have better control of depth of field, and they would be correct, except that they need to, because they have so much less of it.

2. The second is a bit more obscure. All focal plane camera's maximum flash sync at something between 1/125 to 1/250th (that I know of). I believe the micro four thirds are 1/160th maximum (to lazy to go look, sorry). If you want to cut out ambient light, you just have to increase the F stop. But, depending on the lens, after around F8, the image will degrade. By F16, you still have a nice image, but from an absolute quality point of view (not an internet image) one is now something below a really good P&S. And if you let ambient light in (assuming one is shallow and in clear water), then you are limited to the stop action of that 1/160th (which is not that good for really fast moving thing).

An LX-5 can flash sync up to 1/4000... the new fuji and the Oly will 1/2000. It varies with the canon's but they are at least 1/500th. Truth is, they need that because they don't have large number F stops, and they don't have those because they would make really crappy images. But for fast moving, underwater animals, you can freeze things that cannot be frozen with a SLR.

But you typically only get that with the higher end models...

I am not quite sure what to make of some of this. DSLR cameras have big sensors and P&S cameras have little sensors. Image quality with big sensors is much better than with small sensors. While the DOF of a large sensor (at the same viewing parameters) is smaller than with a P&S there is no lack of DOF with a DSLR that can shoot at F22 compared to my P&S that can only shoot at f8. Besides, the reason that DSLR folks talk about DOF is that they can make the DOF shallow for creative reasons, something that can not be gotten by most P&S cameras.
As for freezing the motion of an underwater fish, the sync speed of the camera to the strobe is totally irrelevant if you do it correctly; only the duration of the flash is important. This is of course not true if the ambient light is so bright that any reasonable shutter speed will lead to overexposure but for most practical situations shooting at 1/250 of a second at f16 will lead to minimal ambient exposure and you can capture the speed of almost anything you want. I personally have never wished for a higher sync speed than 1/250 except in the case of shooting a sunball and wanting to get a black background but trying to do that with a P&S is even more absurd. To me the biggest advantage aside from size of a P&S system is that you can shoot both macro and WA on the same dive. The disadvantage is that the IQ of the images that you will get will not be as good as those gotten with DSLRs. Of course not as good might still be way more than good enough, YMMV.

Bill Dive often and safe

 

[Puffer Fish]

Me not making sense is nothing new, sorry.

There are two good things about P&S camera's over interchangeable lens ones:

1. Depth of field at a given field of view and F stop. The SLR people would tell you they have better control of depth of field, and they would be correct, except that they need to, because they have so much less of it.

2. The second is a bit more obscure. All focal plane camera's maximum flash sync at something between 1/125 to 1/250th (that I know of). I believe the micro four thirds are 1/160th maximum (to lazy to go look, sorry). If you want to cut out ambient light, you just have to increase the F stop. But, depending on the lens, after around F8, the image will degrade. By F16, you still have a nice image, but from an absolute quality point of view (not an internet image) one is now something below a really good P&S. And if you let ambient light in (assuming one is shallow and in clear water), then you are limited to the stop action of that 1/160th (which is not that good for really fast moving thing).I have to disagree with you here puffer. Degradation of an image when shooting passed f8...........I find that unbelieveable. As an example in shooting macro, shoot between f22-f29 is the common practice and there is no degradation in the image.

1/160th for example will stop anything moving fast underwater. The fact is that a DSLR would be able to focus and shoot this fast moving subject at a much higher rate than a point and shoot. If in shallow water using ambient light and no strobes you can shoot the DSLR on continous.

An LX-5 can flash sync up to 1/4000... the new fuji and the Oly will 1/2000. It varies with the canon's but they are at least 1/500th. Truth is, they need that because they don't have large number F stops, and they don't have those because they would make really crappy images. But for fast moving, underwater animals, you can freeze things that cannot be frozen with a SLR.
As bill said the only time where you need really high sync speeds is when your shooting direct into the sun and want to capture a perfect sunburst. DSLR are limited to their flash sync speed which is normally 1/200th-1/250th and up to 1/500th on some models but the DSLR has the ability to use a small aperture (higher f-stop) than the limited f8 of a point and shoot. But for shooting fast underwater animals one can not compare the DSLR focusing speed in capturing the subject.

Here is a shot taken at f32 of a fast moving Clownfish. The image looks as good at full size as it does as a small internet image.

1/200th f9 on a fast moving eagle ray.

Regards Mark

Neither of those are fast moving fish...Show me a Juvenal angel fish...one around an inch in length....I took maybe a hundred blurry images until camera's with fast shutter speeds allowed them to be frozen... still difficult to get close to.

Clowns can be a nervous fish when approached, but when in the anemone, will stick their head out and just look.

And and really fast moving ray, swimming at say 30 miles per hour, is not something one would have time to capture, and those small fish would not have been with it.

By the way, lovely images. Very nice work. Both are images a good P&S can do equally as well, by the way.

Regarding image quality, you need to take a class in optics...the issue has been around as long as there have been cameras.

But to get you started, here is a quick overview:

http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/diffraction.html

Bob is just reprinting some very old work on the subject.

DPreview has had to stop posting lens reviews because so many people complained about what it showed....You would think in this day and age that people would take the time to learn first. A quick search for information on this issue will show thousands of pieces of hard data....

Yea, some of the latest camera's are getting faster flash sync..1/250th on some fairly high end models, I am unaware of any normal price range SLR that has 1/500. And going back a couple of years will typically be slower. 1/200th (or something close to that) is now fairly common, but 1/200 and 1/4000 are not the same, or even close.

Focus speed... you are very correct about that. Odd, because there are no fish living in the Northern gulf that I do not have clear, infocus images of, with a point and shoot. And as several places that use my images have noted, some of them they cannot find any slr images of. Perhaps that issue is not as important as one thinks.

Oh, I don't use a focus light, and my average depth of picture is around 90ft, in not so clear water. While I wish I had lovely clear, blue, shallow water to shoot in, I don't. But for the record, in manual focus, or pre-focused, good P&S's are just as fast as any SLR.

Here is one of those, "you cannot take that image with a P&S" images:

Note: This is obviously not a stationary fish, not one in it's protected home and not one that sits still:

And while this is way downsized and not photoshopped (I could obviously remove the backscatter), it is big enough to actually see if there were any focus /image quality issues.

It is not a pretty as the clown, nor as interesting as the ray, but it is somewhat more difficult to take.

 

[AussieByron]

Hi Puffer,

Thank you for your link to Bob Atkins Diffraction topic as it is an interesting read and maybe your correct that I should be doing a class in optics. Unfortunately I am too busy diving in the warm clear water taking photos almost everyday.

It is interesting looking at Bob's practical examples. As noted the first practical example showing the image taken at f16 to be the sharpest. I believe that the f22 image to be slight more sharpe than the f8 image.

Its interesting then to see the difference between the two different lenses (last two examples of images taken of a tree trunk). The f4 lens providing a much sharper image compared to the f4-5.6 lens.

Taking this into account that having a sharper lens would produce sharp images. How would then the f2.8 macro lens compare in sharpness against a point and shoot lens? It would be interesting comparison and might lead one to believe that the super sharp macro lens like the 60mm f2.8 for a DSLR might even be sharper at say f22 than a point and shoot at f8. I personally feel that on the 60mm macro lens f22 is the sweet spot.

But as you said before Puffer the point and shoot lens is limited to 24mm and wider if wetlens is used. I find it very hard for a point and shoot camera to capture a shot like the Eagle ray which was taken at 10mm on a DSLR.

Taking into account that a point and shoot camera can only focus as fast as a DSLR as you say when used in manual focus (pre-focus) on a subject which isnt moving in and out of frame, makes the ability for the capture of a moving large animal in and out of the frame very hard to shoot. Making a shot like the eagle ray example even more harder to capture.

The point and shoot camera might have the upper hand when it comes to shooting with a much higher sync speed on subjects like your fast moving small fish but when it comes to shooting large animals moving through the frame they simply can not focus as fast as or shoot as wide as a DSLR. Thats why you dont see much large animal wide angle shots from a point and shoot.

Regarding flash Sync of DSLRs. The Nikon D70 which is now a few years old had a flash sync speed of 1/500th. With the normal around the 1/200th-1/250th. The issue for faster sync speed for DSLR is mainly based on Sunburst shots.

I can not comment on the fish or the photographers in the Northern Gulf as I have no experience in the subject. Quiet often or not we have large parts of our coastline where there arnt even any divers let alone someone that can shot a camera DSLR or point and shoot. Maybe your lucky in not having anyone that can actually use a DSLR.

Regarding your photo I honestly cant not tell if its a stationary fish or not as I am not familar with the fish species and its movement.

Regards Mark

 

[Puffer Fish]

I would be diving in that clear water, if I had it available to me also.

Nikon D70.. thanks, not a camera I have ever seen, it is, you will admit, a rather pricey model.

Those two fish are small, very nervous fish, that do not like people getting near them. That tail on the spotted drum never stops moving (hence why most images of it are blurred a bit).

You comment on the ray is understandable, if you point any contrast detection focus system at a uniform white surface, it will not focus, and the animal will not stay in that position for long (perhaps not fast moving, but it is not sitting still). The trick is the focus on something with contrast (say the mouth) and then move to center, it takes some practice to actually do it in one motion.

Here is something that most places have as a reference (thanks to my wife for taking the picture).

The object of this image was to get a bee in flight.. the front one just happened to be there.

Regarding the F stop information, one really needs to see a resolution chart to see what is actually happening. Down sizing and several other adjustments can make an image appear to be sharper than they really are... does not mean they will not look nice, but if you make a large print, it will not.

Regarding the lens... once one gets to wide angle, there is no way a point and shoot can work as well or take as crisp of an image. You have to attach a lot of glass, and that slows down the focus and reduces the image quality. It is the home of the SLR (I am refusing to use the D any more as there are no film cameras).

Sharpness, the best 60mm macro on the best SLR (full frame) will be better than any P&S up to around F22, and then it would be about the same, go bigger and there would be a slight advantage to the very best point and shoot. (one model actually)

But use a middle priced SLR, and the story is very different. Say one has a D300 (nice camera, but not the best sensor)....it would only be as good as the best point and shoot up to around F11-F16, and would be worse above that.

Defraction is more of an issue, as the sensor size gets smaller. Going from full frame to apc C size makes it a tiny bit worse. Going to really, really tiny, makes it a lot worse. P&S's don't have large F numbers, because the images would be terrible if they did.

But there is more to an image than just resolution, and people sometimes judge an image on a whole set of other issues.

Fuji's pro camera, has never had great resolution, but instead has great color accuracy and a huge dynamic range...takes lovely images that no point and shoot can do (or most SLR's). Just don't make really big prints off the images.

Hi Puffer,

Thank you for your link to Bob Atkins Diffraction topic as it is an interesting read and maybe your correct that I should be doing a class in optics. Unfortunately I am too busy diving in the warm clear water taking photos almost everyday.

It is interesting looking at Bob's practical examples. As noted the first practical example showing the image taken at f16 to be the sharpest. I believe that the f22 image to be slight more sharpe than the f8 image.

Its interesting then to see the difference between the two different lenses (last two examples of images taken of a tree trunk). The f4 lens providing a much sharper image compared to the f4-5.6 lens.

Taking this into account that having a sharper lens would produce sharp images. How would then the f2.8 macro lens compare in sharpness against a point and shoot lens? It would be interesting comparison and might lead one to believe that the super sharp macro lens like the 60mm f2.8 for a DSLR might even be sharper at say f22 than a point and shoot at f8. I personally feel that on the 60mm macro lens f22 is the sweet spot.

But as you said before Puffer the point and shoot lens is limited to 24mm and wider if wetlens is used. I find it very hard for a point and shoot camera to capture a shot like the Eagle ray which was taken at 10mm on a DSLR.

Taking into account that a point and shoot camera can only focus as fast as a DSLR as you say when used in manual focus (pre-focus) on a subject which isnt moving in and out of frame, makes the ability for the capture of a moving large animal in and out of the frame very hard to shoot. Making a shot like the eagle ray example even more harder to capture.

The point and shoot camera might have the upper hand when it comes to shooting with a much higher sync speed on subjects like your fast moving small fish but when it comes to shooting large animals moving through the frame they simply can not focus as fast as or shoot as wide as a DSLR. Thats why you dont see much large animal wide angle shots from a point and shoot.

Regarding flash Sync of DSLRs. The Nikon D70 which is now a few years old had a flash sync speed of 1/500th. With the normal around the 1/200th-1/250th. The issue for faster sync speed for DSLR is mainly based on Sunburst shots.

I can not comment on the fish or the photographers in the Northern Gulf as I have no experience in the subject. Quiet often or not we have large parts of our coastline where there arnt even any divers let alone someone that can shot a camera DSLR or point and shoot. Maybe your lucky in not having anyone that can actually use a DSLR.

Regarding your photo I honestly cant not tell if its a stationary fish or not as I am not familar with the fish species and its movement.

Regards Mark

 

[bvanant]

Puffer:
Looking only at resolution (as you say) is not the only thing to think about. The G10 has about 10x the pixel density of a 7D with about the same resolution suggesting that the lens makes a big difference. My original point was that almost every photographer that I know wants a blurry background not a tack sharp one and you can't get that with tiny sensors very easily. As for your flash sync, you are still not getting my point. In terms of stopping motion the shutter speed is only important if you have ambient light exposure. At 1/200th second and f16 shooting a juvenile spotted drum, the only light that comes back to the sensor is from the flash and the duration of that is a typically less than a millisecond. The sync speed is not an issue in any way, only the duration of the flash if there is no ambient light.
As for diffraction my Canon 100 macro lens is pretty good through f22 and degrades a bit above that but DOF is increased so the apparent sharpness in a print often looks fine.

The other issue that we didn't address with P&S cameras is shutter/autofocus lag and there for me and the kinds of things that I shoot the current crop (S95/G12/ etc.) is simply not ready for prime time yet, nor is the ultimate image quality. The DXO scores of sensor quality for the G10 is 38 or so, and the G12/S95 is 44 or so, while the 7D is 65 and the 5DII is 78 where you can see a difference of about 5 to 6 points on this score.
All that being said if you are happy with your pictures (and from what you showed you should be) then don't change.
Here is a pic of a juvenile drum shot at 1/125 second at f11. Notice that the tail is remarkably sharp (not a hint of motion blur nor any diffraction) but it was shot such that the only light available was from the strobe). That is the point. If your theory was correct none of the stroboscopic pictures (bullets through balloons) could be taken with SLR cameras (film or digital) and in fact most of them were at really slow (Like B) shutter speeds.

Cheers
Bill
Dive Often, Dive Safe

 

[rhwestfall]

I continually see these, and ask the question "Why not rent something - see what you get, see what you like about what you rented, adjust, do again, modify, and at some time buy? Why, why, why does everyone have to run out and buy the first time they get a chance on a trip? I rented a camera the first time I went to some "exotic" warm water place, and also had a dive buddy let me "borrow" his camera on the trip to get some chances to record my memories..... thankfully, I got some cool stuff, otherwise i would have been saying WTF did I just spend all this money on??????

Sure, it spurs the economic engine, but, are you really ready to go for it? Relax, rent, evaluate, then maybe make an educated guess.

(sorry, the bourbon this evening has attacked my rational mind .......)

 

[AussieByron]

Nikon D70.. thanks, not a camera I have ever seen, it is, you will admit, a rather pricey model. Never seen a Nikon D70? It happened to be the most popular DSLR around 2004-2006. It was introduced after the D100 and before the D200 and it was Nikon's first middle priced DSLR and the father of Nikon product lines such as the D80, D90. With a list price of $999 I wouldnt say it was a pricey body

But use a middle priced SLR, and the story is very different. Say one has a D300 (nice camera, but not the best sensor)....it would only be as good as the best point and shoot up to around F11-F16, and would be worse above that.I think this is a very generalised statement Puffer. Your based your opinon on just the body alone and not what lens attaches to it. You say yourself that a point and shoot can't handle shooting wide as a DSLR. So If I attach a great wide angle lens such as the Tokina 10-17mm to the D300 that it will only be as good as the best point and shoot??? In what regard? ability to focus, shutter lag, sharpness, ...???

You provided a link Bob atkins site regarding Diffraction. Going by Bob's examples the first practical example shows that yes f16 is the sweet spot for the Canon 75-300 f4-5.6 and with the slight sharpness reduction at f22 which to me is slight sharper than the example provided at f11.

Also in Bob's link he states that the Canon 300mm f4 is a sharper lens than the Canon 75-300 f4-5.6 2 300m. Which would suggest that the level of sharpness varies depending on the lens used. What would the same type of test say about Macro lens like the 60mm f2.8 and 100/105mm f2.8 macros by either Canon or Nikon? Maybe these lenses have acceptable sharpness at f22?

Unless you have a direct comparision against the best point and shoot cameras and say a few of the current popular DSLR camera with a collection of the most popular lenses used underwater your statement is based on your opinion rather than actual fact. Providing a link to Bob Atkins Diffraction site does not compare the difference in sharpness between a DSLR and a point and shoot. It does show that the level of sharpness is dependant on the lens used.



But there is more to an image than just resolution, and people sometimes judge an image on a whole set of other issues. I think this is your best statement regarding this topic yet. There is more to an image than just resolution, sharpness, flash sync, f-stop etc etc etc.......its the end result which is how a image is judged. Each person is different and judges an image according to their eye. I personally prefer a DSLR as it is more versatile for my style of shooting. I can be more creative with settings (ie shooting different f-stops which I would be restricted to with a P & S). The autofocus is so much faster for the type of shooting I do that a P & S would only capture a much smaller amount of shots in a series with a good chance of missing that one good shot. But as always there is a cost and shooting a DSLR also involves spending alot more money than one would with a P & S and also the shear bulk of carrying a large setup around both on land and underwater.

Regards Mark